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Climate change, mass extinction, pandemics, economic instability: Something powerful is wracking the planet. In
this powerful book, environmental scholar, Paul Wapner,
explains the rise of global wildness. For centuries, humans have pushed unpredictability and discomfort out of their immediate lives in search of security and convenience. They have been remarkably successful.
Today, many people, especially the affluent, rarely encounter wild animals, suffer exposure to the elements, or even have to tolerate the capriciousness of other people. But wildness is akin to energy: it cannot be created or destroyed. As people establish
havens of stability, they do not eradicate wildness but shove it into the lives of the less fortunate and, more dramatically, catapult it up to the global level. The result is runaway and unjust climate change, unstoppable species extinction,
and other challenges that worsen conditions for the poor and rip at the fabric that supports all life on Earth.
Is
Wildness Over? paints a picture of the new global wildness. Analyzing the effects of disappearing species, wildfires, calving glaciers, and other environmental
assaults, Wapner dispels
the myth that humans can protect themselves from danger and discomfort by mastering nature and exerting greater control over life. In fact, the opposite is true. As Wapner argues, these days, wellbeing rests on rewilding the
world.
Rewilding rejects efforts to control the atmosphere (geoengineering) or evolution
(de-extinction) or other forms of planetary-wide conquest. Instead, it questions the purpose of conquest itself and the modern desire for comfort at all costs. Rewilding, as such, entails welcoming greater uncertainty, discomfort, and even a modicum of danger
into our personal and collective lives.
Combining philosophical reflection and policy prescription, this compact volume provides the kind of moral sensitivity and intellectual framework necessary for navigating these
wild times.
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